Apologies, apologies, and a fine mess

Curt Mudgeon

May 2004

The mischief that took place at the Abu Ghraib prison is exactly what we do not need at the moment. It has been said that these events will intensify the wrath of the Iraqi franc-tireurs and terrorists. This is not the problem. Saddam Hussein diehards and other lunatics want to kill us no matter what. Their guerrilla is one of no quarter and no surrender. It has also been said that the world will despise America for it. This is not the problem either. Of course, those tin-pot nations that despise America for no good reason will find in the “scandal” a noble excuse to hate America, but they were not our friends to start with. Only our true friends will understand that once in a while bad stuff happens because bad people are a fact of life when large numbers are involved. We may have few true friends, but that is a circumstance with which we have to live anyway, and it is an ineluctable part of our being Americans.

What is a problem are the posturing and the sanctimonious indignation of the Washington politicos and their toadies of the press. And there is so much hot air about where the buck stops that a warming of a new sort may hit the entire Earth. “Ah,” they say, “Donald Rumsfeld must resign,” and Sen Kennedy, blubbery wreck from Massachusetts, has nominated Colin Powell to head the Defense Department. Charles Rangel, fat cat of race politics, wants to impeach Rumsfeld for no reasons other than to impress his constituency and to gum up the works. And then, self-righteous boobs fond of clichés invoke the sign on Harry Truman’s desk and assert that the buck has crept into the Oval Office. So, what should we make of that? That the president should resign? Or be impeached? Rubbish! The Democrat propaganda machine, which had run out of ideas a long time ago, has just found in the stupid mischief at the Abu Ghraib prison a new soapbox to climb upon.

Strangely enough, those so intent on tracking the buck are passing it over a major party to the whole affair, namely, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the reservist in charge of running the Iraqi prisons. She was the highest-ranking officer of the fair sex in Iraq. She was featured in a December 2003 article of the St Petersburg Times as a cliché “role model,” a living emblem of that sacrosanct diversity so dear to feminist politicos. The piece described her as a brave, caring commander who loves her soldiers, runs a tight ship, and makes sure that men and women under her command performed the same kind of work. Her attraction to a military career was motivated by “the opportunities to do all the exciting things [she] could never do as a school teacher or in any other capacity.” Of course, one could expect that fashionable bromide from a starry-eyed journalist who probably did not get too often the opportunity to interview a brigadier general of the fair sex. In the light of recent events, it appears that the general’s flattering portrait was rather incomplete.

Gen Karpinski’s job description was pretty specific. It included the management of the facilities to provide a safe, secure, and humane environment for the detainees, and the passive gathering of intelligence, as feasible. Pentagon instructions prescribed that the handling of the “Enemy Combatants” had to conform to the Geneva Conventions with minor exceptions potentially dictated by military necessity. But in no circumstances were the MPs to engage in coercive action to facilitate interrogations by Military Intelligence, or to participate in interrogations. Prisoners under MI control were kept in cell blocks 1A and 1B, which were off-limits to the MPs.

As we know, it turned out that some personnel of Gen Karpinski’s 800^th MP brigade disobeyed orders. Not only did they visit the forbidden blocks, but they engaged there in “preparing” the inmates for interrogation. No one seemed to care until a corporal who had seen the pictures and a lieutenant blew the lid off the mess. So, what sort of outfit was Gen Karpinski running? The report of Maj Gen Taguba, investigating officer, is pretty damning. It cites lack of leadership, a refusal to enforce military discipline and uniform standards, a general breakdown of authority; inept officers kept on the brigade staff, neglect of personnel training and instruction, and lack of supervision. Soldiers rarely saw Gen Karpinski and Lt Col Phillabaum, battalion commander in charge of Abu Ghraib.

On the talk show circuit, the role-model general tried to muddle the picture by claiming that MI had usurped her authority, and that MI had orchestrated the prisoners’ abuse in spite of her opposition. She added that her MPs had been properly trained and instructed, and blamed a breakdown of the chain of command, which, apparently, was beyond her control. Now, it is unlikely that a brigadier general would let her authority be usurped that easily. Either she would have been given orders to let MI trespass on her turf and use her MPs to “soften” prisoners, or she should have taken the matter to a higher level of command. None of that, however, surfaced in the investigation. As to a breakdown of the chain of command, it was precisely her job to prevent it. She also tried to blur her responsibility by blaming MI, which took over the prison system after her tour of duty. But the abuse recorded in the photographs took place at the hand of her MPs and under her watch.

Would Gen Karpinski be a Peter-Principle general, an aberration of the Pentagon’s protocol of advancement? Or was she promoted by preferential treatment to fill a quota designed to exculpate the Army from accusations of unfair discrimination against women? In interviews, the general, who has received a Memorandum of Admonishment from Lt Gen Sanchez, whined about being a scapegoat. We can see where this line of defense can lead, which may explain the Memorandum of Admonishment, a rather mild sanction for poor leadership and dereliction of duty. Other officers are under investigation on the same kind of charges.

There will be courts-martial for the NCOs and lower ranks, and the argument that the “little people” will be the real scapegoats has already been raised. Of course, the “little people” will claim that they were following orders. A case in point is that of Pfc Lynndie England, poster child for the “little people.” She is the soldier of lowest rank and the youngest of the bunch---the “most vulnerable” as her lawyer put it. She is also the one in the damning pictures who points with glee at the private parts of naked prisoners, and who holds one on a leash. Her claim is that the pictures were staged to be shown to prisoners for intimidation as part of “psychological operations,” and that she was ordered to pose for them by superiors in her line of command.

But Pfc England did not belong in the prison, let alone in the forbidden blocks. She was a clerk in an independent MP office in charge of keeping prison records. Apparently, she was visiting the prison to meet there her boyfriend, Cpl Graner, who was a principal actor in the “softening” of the prisoners, as documented by incriminating photographs. More photographs that surfaced later also showed Pfc England having sex at the prison with different soldiers. It is hard to believe that she was following orders in another “psy-ops” scheme. That the acts took place in front of naked prisoners reinforces the impression of deviance suggested by other pictures.

What is not hard to believe is that the whole affair was a rogue operation in which deviants acted their sick fancies. It is a vivid reminder that when the “big people” do not mind the store, bad “little people” will do bad things. Let us just hope that exemplary punishment will strike “big” and “little” people. We know that lawyers and other hangers-on will try to make us believe that the “little people” who do bad things are just good people improperly trained. This is poppycock. Training is no substitute for the personal sense of responsibility and decency that should take over when external controls are missing and wrongdoing can go unpunished. As cited in Maj Gen Taguba’s report, there were officers and soldiers of the 800^th MP Brigade who, in spite of the pervasive absence of leadership and other difficult conditions, took upon themselves to uphold Army values and discipline.

It is probable that the misconduct of a dozen MPs and the MI lack of control at Abu Ghraib will have adverse consequences on our ability to gather intelligence. The detainees of cell blocks 1A and 1B are not by and large a harmless bunch captured by mistake. They are likely to have participated in the insurgency as terrorists, guerrillas, or in support or planning functions. As such, they constitute a potential source of valuable intelligence, the sort of intelligence that can save lives. Not protected by the Geneva Conventions, they can be legitimately subjected to coercive interrogation methods that remain humane and exempt from brutality. Actually, Pentagon guidelines regulating such methods follow pretty closely the Geneva Conventions applicable to “Prisoners of War,” that is, to military regulars captured in combat. Emotional reactions to the Abu Ghraib mischief and attendant political posturing will probably result in new restrictions on prisoner interrogation with impact on intelligence gathering, on the conduct the war, and, ultimately, on lives lost in the front lines.

What happened at the Abu Ghraib prison was not a consequence of White House or Pentagon policies. Should the president and the secretary of defense have apologized? I think not. I understand that they did it because they are decent people. Decency, however, is not a virtue highly valued in the halls of Congress, and the usual Democrat hacks will exploit the apologies as acknowledgements of personal culpability. And guess who has started the charge? The blubbery wreck from Massachusetts, of course.